Weapons expert who worked with scientist whose suicide triggered Hutton inquiry ‘killed himself after quitting job following bullying behaviour’
Daily Mail -
- Dr Richard Holmes quit his job the day before he was due to face hearing
- Coroner to write to MoD about handling of employees on autism spectrum
- Said goodbye to daughter on the day he disappeared before ‘going for walk’
- In the 1990s Dr Holmes worked with Dr David Kelly, who died in 2003
A weapons expert who worked with Dr David Kelly at the Government’s secret chemical warfare laboratory took his own life after leaving his job while under investigation for bullying, an inquest heard today.
Dr Richard Holmes, a married father of one, resigned from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) in Porton Down, Wiltshire the day before he was due to face a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct in February last year.
Dr Holmes had been suspended from his role at the laboratory in November 2011 after a contractor he was working with on the Typhoon-Joint Strike Fighter project complained about bullying.
On leaving his position Dr Holmes planned to take his former employer to an employment tribunal, and started to explore opportunities with US-based firms.
But the inquest heard that on the day he disappeared, he had also found out that an application for a job as a cleaner at Salisbury District Hospital had been unsuccessful.
In the 1990s Dr Homes worked with Dr David Kelly, the government scientist who killed himself in 2003 after being named as a source of controversial claims about the government’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
Read more: dailymail.co.uk
